"Who's Myron Holder goin' with?" said Gamaliel Deans to his mother, as they drove along to the village the day of Mrs. Holder's funeral.
"I don't know," answered his mother. "Mrs. Warner's took a mighty lot to do with everything, so like's not she'll take her."
"Seems to me Mrs. Warner's been putting herself forward some," suggested Gamaliel, diplomatically.
"Indeed she has," agreed Mrs. Deans; "enough sight more'n she's got any call for—considerin' all things."
They passed the little graveyard, silent beneath the light snow.
"Is there any track?" asked Mrs. Deans, looking across the white expanse, with her hands shielding her rheumy eyes.
"Yes," said Gamaliel, "the shell was took out this morning; you can see it from here." He gazed interestedly across to where the corner of an unpainted pine box showed as the terminus of an ugly black track which the wheels of Mr. Muir's wagon had scarred upon the snow.
They drove on without further speech. The first snow had fallen in the night. It lay now white and untrodden, over field and lane, over bush and tree, over house and barn. The air seemed spaced in vistas of cloudy whiteness, a purity which suffused itself in the atmosphere, and seemed to fill it with particles of impalpable white dust that the motionless air held in suspension. The trees glistened in the sun, whose rays were silver instead of gold. All the world was rimed with hoar frost—nature presented, in beautiful parable, the story of the iron hand in the velvet glove; for, despite the whiteness, the softness, and the silvery sun, it was intensely cold.
Presently through this white world there wended the gloomy little funeral, the more gloomy for the lack of any real grief. They reached the graveyard, where gaped an ugly brown gash, beside which the earth lay in frozen clods.
Mr. Frew's brief prayer was ended, and he departed, stamping his feet. There was the bustle as the coffin was lowered; then, one by one, the onlookers straggled away; one by one the vehicles departed, until Myron Holder was left alone by the grave—yet not wholly so, for My shivered in her arms, and old Clem Humphries was hastily pushing the earth atop the coffin. And presently Myron became aware that there was another patient one also, for Homer Wilson came to her side, carrying a buffalo robe in his arms. He laid it down on the frozen ground, and, taking her arm, drew her gently towards it. She looked mute thanks to him from eyes round which the slow tears lingered, rimming them with grief. He came nearer and held out his arms to My, but the child cowered closer to his mother, and looked at Homer from the vantage of her shoulder.